Violin

In the 17th and 18th centuries, composers wrote a lot of music. They wrote the music for solo violin. Many of these composers were from Italy. They were themselves violinists. Some of these violinists are Corelli, Vitali, Vivaldi, Veracini, Geminiani, Locatelli and Tartini. In Germany, Schmelzer and Biber wrote some very virtuoso violin music. Later, in the early 18th century, Bach and Handel wrote many masterpieces for the violin.

In the Classical music period, the great composers Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven all wrote solo works for the violin. They also wrote a large amount of chamber music, especially string quartets.

In the Romantic period many virtuoso violin works were written. These include concertos byMendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, Brahms, Bruch, Wieniawski, Tchaikovsky, and Dvořák. In the 20th century, many virtuoso works were written. These include Elgar, Sibelius, Szymanowski, Bartók,Stravinsky, Berg, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Hindemith, and Penderecki. In the 19th century, Niccolò Paganini was the most famous violinist. He composed and played violin music that was harder than anything that had been written before. People compared him to the devil because he could play so brilliantly and because he looked thin and moved his body about in strange ways^[13].

In recent years the violin has also been used in jazz playing. Stéphane Grappelli was especially famous for this.